New major Irish national security review to examine Russian aggression and Chinese cyberattacks

The Government has commenced work on a wide-ranging review of the international threats facing Ireland following a one-year delay.

The Strategic Defence Review is expected to examine the security implications for the State of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, increasing cyberattacks originating from China and the growing threat of so-called “hybrid warfare”, including the weaponisation of energy and migrant flows by foreign states.

According to a spokeswoman from the Department of Defence, which is leading the review, the process “is to ensure an updated security assessment and a fresh consideration of the implications of this assessment for overall, policy requirements, associated tasks, capability development and resourcing”.

These reviews are common practice internationally, the Department said, and provide reassurance that defence policy remains “up to date and relevant”.

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The review is a separate process from the National Security Strategy for 2020-2025 being developed by the National Security Analysis Centre, which serves as the primary security adviser to the Taoiseach. Despite a public consultation being completed in 2019, the National Security Strategy remains unfinished.

Under the 2015 White Paper on Defence, the Government should engage in a fixed cycle of strategic defence reviews every three years. since then, one review, in the form of an update to the White Paper, was published in 2019.

A second review was planned to begin in 2021 but this was postponed until the Commission on the Defence Forces completed its work.

The Department said work on the new review has now commenced with “an assessment of the security environment which has changed significantly since the 2019 White Paper update”.

The new review will assess how well equipped the State is to meet national security threats and what needs to be done to fill the gaps. It will likely build on the findings of the Commission which stated the Defence Forces are not currently capable of defending the State against any significant attack.

Urgent actions

The review is one of several urgent actions being undertaken by the Department this year following the Commission report. On Friday, the position of Head of Transformation was advertised seeking a candidate to “lead the delivery of challenging strategic transformation programmes across the organisation”. The post of a strategic Defence Forces human resources chief is to be advertised shortly as well as that of a “gender adviser” to the Chief of Staff.

These appointments are designed to kick-start a programme of restoring the Defence Forces after years of decline. The Government intends to increase defence spending by 50 per cent over the next six years and increase Defence Forces numbers by over 3,000 to 11,500.

However, scepticism remains about the Government’s ability to achieve this goal given the ongoing exodus of trained personnel from the organisation. This week the Representative Association of Commission Officers told Minister of Defence Simon Coveney the proposals are not “realistic or achievable” under current policies.